First Kisses
by Kirkis
Summary: We all remember our first kiss, what if that kiss wasn't our first... what if we've been kissed and never knew?
1. Hermione Granger

First Kisses: Hermione Granger 

_Harry Potter, and all Characters therein belong to J. K. Rowling, © 2001 Warner Bros. In short, they aren't mine, please don't sue.   
**kkisblpeen@aol.com   
http://kirkis-elf.com**_   
  
**First Kisses**   
_By Kirkis_   
**Chapter one - Hermione Granger** (Chapter one is based partly on the movie)

Hermione knelt among the shattered chess pieces that littered the life-sized chessboard. Harry quickly joined her.   
  
"Take care of Ron, use the broom in the flying key room to get back up through the trapdoor and past Fluffy. Then go to the owlery and send Hedwig to Dumbledore, we'll need him," Harry instructed, taking a short pause. "Ron's right," he restarted, glancing away toward the next door. "I have to go on."   
  
"You'll be okay Harry, you're a great wizard, you really are," Hermione said, almost at a whisper.   
  
"I'm not as good as you," Harry offered up, shrugging his shoulders. Hermione only grinned, glancing down at Ron.   
  
"Heh, me?" she said, returning her gaze to Harry. "Books and cleverness, but there are more important things. Friendship and bravery, and Harry," she paused, deciding to condense her statement. "just be careful."   
  
Harry nodded and in one movement stood and turned toward the door. He walked briskly across the room, Hermione's words still echoing in his ears as he reached the door. He turned and threw a look back at his friends. _Friendship, and bravery,_ he thought. They were truly his friends, but even they couldn't go on, and he knew it. He turned, pulled open the huge door partway, and slipped through.   
  
  
Hermione watched Harry until he'd slipped through the doorway, before she turned her attention to Ron.   
  
"Ron, wake up," she said, shaking his arm. There was no way she could get him all the way out of the trapdoor unconscious. "Wake up!" she shouted louder, jumping a bit at the sound of her voice echoing in the huge chess room. She shook him much harder this time, but she still couldn't wake him. She let out a quick sigh. _I suppose I'll have to slap him maybe?_ she thought, patting his face.   
  
"C'mon, Ron, wake up!" she barked, sinking back onto her heels. She sat there for a moment looking at him, running her eyes over the uneven strands of flame orange hair that had come to rest across his forehead. She reached down, almost without thinking, and dusted them away.   
  
_I'm all alone, and he's unconscious,_ she thought, touching ever so gently at the nicks and cuts Ron had managed to accumulate during their trek through the trapdoor. _I guess if he didn't wake up when I shook him,_ she thought, leaning back down toward him. _Just one couldn't hurt, and he'll never tell anyone,_ she further convinced herself. She flitted her gaze back and forth from his eyes to his lips, until her bottom lip touched his. On impulse she pulled back about an inch, taken aback by the tenderness of his lips. _Ever so softly, don't wake him,_ she thought, lowering once again. This time she didn't pull back, gingerly letting her lips flirt over his, brushing them just barely here and there.   
  
_Don't you dare wake up, Ron Weasley,_ she thought, finally letting her lips press down on his. A strange queasiness flooded into her stomach, as her lips danced a caressing dance over his. Still unconscious, Ron would have no idea any of it ever happened. She drew in a breath as she kissed, pulling with it his unique, gingerish scent. She'd only smelled it a handful of times before, and wondered how he came to smell like ginger snaps. Now the faint smell wafted into her nostrils and ran tingles all the way down her back. After what seemed like an eternity of sensation, Hermione's good sense kicked in. _This is no time for passionate kisses, you idiot!_ she mentally berated herself for her single moment of feminine curiosity.   
  
"All right, Ron, you've got to wake up!" she said loudly, lightly slapping one of his cheeks. "Ron!" she huffed. "This isn't working at all. Ron!" She furrowed her brow, drew back her hand and slapped him harder. "Ron!!" she barked. "Wake up!" she shouted, slapping him again.   
  
"Wha…who…?" he stuttered, raising his hands to shield himself from the stinging slaps landing on his cheeks.   
  
"Wake up Ron, we've got to get a message to Dumbledore, c'mon!" she said, shaking him again.   
  
"Would you stop!" Ron shouted, sitting up and shaking himself loose of her grip. "You couldn't've shaken me awake, could you?" he complained, dragging himself to his feet. "Ow!" Ron grabbed his leg tightly.   
  
"I tried, I was lucky slapping you brought you around," she retorted, slipping his arm over her shoulder.   
  
"You just like slapping people around, I think."   
  
"We don't have time to argue, Ron, Harry's gone ahead, and we've got to get a message to Dumbledore."   
  
"That doesn't give you the right to go beating people senseless."   
  
"If you'd woken up the first time I shouted-"   
  
"I'm amazed I didn't, you've got a voice that could wake the dead."   
  
"Oh, go on, Ron, before I leave you to limp your way out of here!" They argued as they slowly made their way out of the chessroom.

  



	2. Ron Weasley

_Harry Potter, and all Characters therein belong to J. K. Rowling, © 2001 Warner Bros. In short, they aren't mine, please don't sue.   
**kkisblpeen@aol.com   
http://kirkis-elf.com**_   
  
**First Kisses**   
_By Kirkis_   
**Chapter two - Ron Weasley**   
  
_***Special thanks to Seldes Katne for Ron's thought regarding Madam Pomfrey's hands._

  
Ron stood and followed the dazed Gilderoy Lockhart out of Professor Dumbledore's office, closing the door behind him.   
  
"Sometimes I wish I could be in on those little chats Harry has with him," Ron commented as the two of them headed down the hall. Lockhart tossed his head aimlessly, this way and that, gazing at the portraits lining the wall.   
  
"Hmm? Oh, do they talk a lot, those two?" he replied. "That elderly man and the boy, um, what's his name?"   
  
"Harry."   
  
"Yes, Harry, that was it," Lockhart naïvely acknowledged. Ron rolled his eyes.   
  
"This way," Ron sighed, moping along behind the dumbfounded professor.   


"My goodness, what's happened to Professor Lockhart?" Madam Pomfrey asked, watching the professor wander into the infirmary.   
  
"Memory charm gone wrong," Ron replied turning to Lockhart. "This is Madam Pomfrey, she'll help you," he said slowly and deliberately, as if Lockhart were hard of hearing.   
  
"Hello," Lockhart said, an innocent smile drawing across his face. Madam Pomfrey shook her head slowly.   
  
"I have so much to do already without someone else," she muttered, taking him by the hand and leading him into the next room, leaving Ron alone in the dormitory with all the petrified patients. Ron glanced around the room, then wandered over to where Hermione lay, still frozen. He took a seat on a stool next to her bed, and drew in a deep breath.   
  
"Won't be too long now," he said to her. "Professor Sprout harvested the Mandrakes earlier, they're just making the juice I'm sure," he finished, as if she could fret over being petrified. He tilted his head and gazed at her for a moment. She wasn't hard as stone, though her entire body was stiff as a board, her flesh was still soft. He'd noticed it when he and Harry had wrestled the piece of paper out of Hermione's hand.   
  
He hesitantly drew his hand close to her face, watching her eyes intently, fearing that by some fluke, she might suddenly turn her head and glare at him, wondering what he was doing. She didn't. He touched her cheek gently and led his two fingers down its slope to her chin. Glancing up from her, Ron looked back and forth, over his shoulder and back again, before returning his gaze to her. He bit his bottom lip gently and wrinkled his brow, then leaned forward, inching his face closer to hers. Nearly an inch from her lips, he caught sight of them. Two chocolate-brown eyes staring blankly upward, at him, glossed over, but still seemingly very full of life. He could almost hear her.   
  
"Just what do you think you're doing, Ron? I'm lying here petrified and you're sneaking kisses! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" Ron pulled back a bit, and brought his hand up to her face again. He gently put his fingers over her eyelids, and pulled them down. But the moment he moved his hand, her eyes popped open again, in the same fixed stare. He tried again, but to no avail. Ron looked warily into her deep brown eyes.   
  
"Hermione, you've got some beautiful eyes, you know," he paused. "when you aren't shooting daggers out of them at me that is." He kept looking at them, finally waving a hand in front of her face. _Wonder if she can see me? I don't guess so, if she's petrified, I guess her brain's been petrified too,_ he assured himself. Swallowing a lump of anxiety, he leaned forward again, bringing his lips down slowly to meet with hers. It was almost a shock to him at first contact.   
  
_So soft, like kissing..._ his thoughts trailed off. _I dunno, never felt anything like this before._ He let his lips press down on hers a little more firmly, drawing in a breath. She had a faint scent that he recognized, it was something he'd smelled before, but he couldn't place it. He opened his eyes, and looked deeply into her wide-open eyes. A warm tingling was surging in his lips, and he could feel his ears grow warm with blush. The sensation of her lips touching his was overwhelming, even though she wasn't moving at all. He closed his eyes again, wanting only to imagine that she'd closed hers.   
  
_The library, that's it!_ he thought, nearly laughing on the spot. _She smells like the library, even after all this time in the infirmary._   
  
His imagination was cut short by the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. In the split second he realized that someone was coming, Ron whipped his head back away from her faster than Harry's Nimbus Two Thousand flew, and plopped back on his stool with such force that it rocked back on its back two legs. He tried to look casual, watching as Madam Pomfrey walked into the dormitory. She was approaching, carrying a tray full of bottles.   
  
_The Mandrake Juice, no doubt,_ he thought, still eyeing her. She set the tray down on the stand next to Hermione's table.   
  
"I'm sure you'll want to talk to your friend," she said warmly, pulling out a small straw from her breast pocket, and wiggling it carefully into Hermione's mouth. "Hold this steady, please" she ordered, taking one of the bottles off the tray. Ron held the straw as steady as he could as Madam Pomfrey started to pour the Mandrake juice down the straw and into Hermione's mouth.   
  
_She's _got_ to have the steadiest hands in the world!_ Ron thought, watching Madam Pomfrey slowly drip the Mandrake juice into the straw. She stopped after only a few seconds.   
  
"It'll take some time, dear, it has to trickle down into her, she can't swallow yet," she explained. Ron nodded at her and then turned his attention back to Hermione.

  


A few minutes later…   
  
"Where…" Hermione said softly, her voice barely audible. She turned her head toward Ron, who was sitting beside her, looking sheepishly happy. Suddenly everything came rushing back: the library, finding out about the Basilisk, telling the Ravenclaw Prefect, and then peeking around the corner with Penelope's Mirror only to see two big yellow eyes glare back.   
  
"The monster," she croaked. "I know what it is."   
  
"Don't worry, Harry's already killed it," Ron said smiling.   
  
"Then you two found the Chamber of Secrets?" she asked, her voice popping in and out.   
  
"Kinda. Harry went down into it, I just went part of the way," Ron admitted. Not that he really wanted to go all the way down into the Chamber, but he _had_ wanted to save Ginny. Hermione looked down at her hand, noticing the torn piece of paper was gone.   
  
"I'm guessing you two found my notes," she said hoarsely. Ron only grinned.

  


The night seemed to fly by, and it was well into the morning before anyone even thought of going to bed. Slowly the houses made their way back to the dormitories one by one. Hermione said her goodnights, or rather, good mornings to her friends and headed off to her four-poster bed. She plopped down heavily on the cushy mattress, and rolled over on her back staring up at the covered ceiling overhead. She lay there gazing calmly up at the same spot. Then slowly brought her hand to her lips, gliding her fingers along her bottom lip. She closed her eyes and replayed the scene in her head.   
  
Ron coming ever so much closer to her, his lips touching hers, his eyes closing. She could still feel his lips on hers. She knew she should probably be more than angry with him that he'd do something as pathetic as sneaking a kiss when she wasn't able to stop him. But the fact that she had once stolen a kiss from him at a very opportune moment had held her back.   
  
_No, It wasn't that, Hermione. You were thrilled that he wanted to kiss you,_ she thought, a grin sneaking to her lips. _He'll never have to know that I saw him, that I remember vividly. That I could hear, see and feel him,_ she thought again, sighing. She pulled the blankets up around her shoulders and turned to look out the window at the slowly rising sun. A broad smile shot across her face.   
  
"Same color," she said, squinting at the flaming red-orange sun.

**_Kirkis' comments:   
http://kirkis-elf.com/w_hpotter/com_firstkisses02.html_**


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